Clothing construction class continues.

I do love a circle skirt...

I'm really glad I'm taking this class. It's so great to have help from someone who really knows her stuff when I encounter pattern problems.

Right now we're learning how to work from a commercial pattern, and we're supposed to pick something that suits our skill level. Some people have really simple garments like gathered skirts or wraps. Others with more sewing experience chose more complex stuff, like collared jackets and such.

I'm trying Vogue V8615, a dress labeled as "very easy" so I don't bite off more than I can chew just yet. My challenge for this dress is setting sleeves and fitting the bust on a garment with a higher neckline. The sleeves in my failure of a Maester's robe were such a horrible trainwreck that I want to try a second attempt under the guidance of a pro. Again, while this pattern says that these sleeves are "very easy," so did the robe one, and I know better than to assume that the company's definition of "very easy" jives with mine.

Seriously bro?

So far we've cut out our pieces and we're poised to start sewing. During the cutting process I ran into my first "Maritza please save me" problem. The shoulder of the bodice pieces looked crazy screwy. On the right, the dotted lines were labeled one way, but on the left, all the measurements were down a row and I had no idea where to cut. I was told to just keep cutting along the same line and that this could be a printing error, but looking at it now I just realized that the extra numbers line up with the little triangles. HAH! Reason from madness! Thank you, dear blog, for making me think about this again later.

The bust on this dress is also different than my previous dresses. The pattern is labeled as "custom fit," and it comes with a bunch of different bodice fronts for bra sizes A-D. I'm larger than a D, but the measurements on the package for the size I cut are actually exactly my measurements, so I hope it will work out. If not, Maritza tells us she can help us learn to make adjustments.

We have tomorrow off, so I'll likely use some of that time to cut out the muslin for my first version of the dress. I still need to get fabric, but since I'm in muslin-land, I can wait and think about what exactly I want this dress to look like.